Accepted_test

Guar is a short-day legume, whose seeds are mainly used for the production of Guar gum, a compound with diverse industrial applications. In Russia the primary challenge for the cultivation of guar is the long photoperiod during summer, which can lead to delayed flowering in guar plants. In other legumes such as Soybean, the flowering time is mainly influenced by the E1-E4 maturity genes. However, in Guar these genes have not been characterized, which represents an issue for the implementation of genome editing technologies in these flowering-related genes. In this study, we used a bioinformatics approach to identify and characterize the Guar genes homologous to soybean E1-E4 maturity genes. The candidate genes were amplified, sequenced and transcriptome data was used to confirm the expression of the E1-E4 homologous genes in early and late flowering Guar accessions. As result of the bioinformatics analysis, homologous sequences to the soybean E1-E4 genes were identified. Sequence alignment and gene structure prediction revealed high sequence similarity and similar exon-intron structure between Guar homologs and their respective soybean counterparts. Sequence analysis of the Guar homologs in early and late flowering accessions provided a first insight into the presence of potential SNP associated with flowering time regulation. The in-silico characterization of these Guar genes lays the foundation for further functional studies and genome editing experiments targeting these genes to analyze the genetic network that underlies the flowering time regulation in Guar.